Will someone please give Control's Sam Riley a role worthy of his talents? Because he hasn't had one since his stellar breakthrough performance.

The latest in Riley's post-Control list of promising but fatally flawed films is Rowan Joffe's Brighton Rock, a film that fails because it confuses the hard-boiled attitude of classic film noir with one-dimensional posturing, while entirely neglecting the importance of having character relationships that make any sort of sense.

Sam Riley is Pinkie Brown, minor 1960s thug with his eye on a quick rise through the ranks. When his boss is cut down by a better-financed rival gang, retribution falls to Pinkie. And retribution poorly executed leaves a witness in young Rose, who must be kept silent.

And here is where the film simply stops making sense: Pinkie, having already demonstrated his homicidal urges and having no emotional connection to Rose whatsoever, decides not to kill her. Instead he takes her to dinner. When he learns that she does indeed know enough to bring them all down - exposing his entire gang to the death penalty - he indirectly threatens to melt her face off with acid. But when things turn bad enough that Pinkie kills of one of his own gang members, does he kill Rose then? No, that would be when he marries her. And when he starts to believe that she is about to turn him in and he really, absolutely, now definitely does need her dead to protect himself, does he kill her then? No, he tries to talk her into killing herself.

Bluntly, the character relationships in this film make no sense at all. Pinkie is a killer who doesn't kill when he should. If there was a believable love story between Pinkie in Rose then it might make sense but Pinkie states bluntly, repeatedly that he hates her and has married her only because a wife cannot be forced to testify against her husband. Memo to multiple murderer Pinkie: neither can a dead woman. And as flat and nonsensical as the relationship between the characters is, the relationship between the actors is every bit as flat and lifeless. This is the core relationship of the film and it just doesn't work on any level. Also not working on any level is a conclusion that drags on far too long while pushing out to absolute ludicrous extremes. Yes, having a professional thug trying to fake a suicide pact is not the most ludicrous thing in the finale. No, there are two even more ludicrous and egregious events following directly after.

Sam Riley. Helen Mirren. John Hurt. Andy Serkis. How is it that with a cast like this only Serkis seems to really understand what sort of film he is in?